


Team Roach vs Team Attic Round Two: Battle of the Doughnuts

by bellagerantalii



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Crack, Gen, Lardo POV, Stereotypical Canadians, Stereotypical New Englanders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-21
Updated: 2017-08-21
Packaged: 2018-12-18 09:59:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11871960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellagerantalii/pseuds/bellagerantalii
Summary: Dunkin' Donuts may be dropping the "Donuts" from their name, and the New Englanders on SMH are shook. Obviously, this means a battle royale between Dunkin Donuts and Tim Hortons.





	Team Roach vs Team Attic Round Two: Battle of the Doughnuts

**Author's Note:**

> I don't care what people say-- the biggest rivalry in the NHL is Dunkin' people vs. Tim Hortons people.

**Shitty:** This is an outrage!!!

Lardo looks from her phone, which is open to the SMH group chat, down at her watch. 12:15 PM, right on the nose. Every day at 12:15 PM, Shitty starts his lunch break at the firm that he interns for in Back Bay. And at 12:15 every day, he posts a new outrage to the group chat.

**Holster:** What is it today, Shits?

**Ransom:** Did that one partner have the lady intern get his coffee again?

**Holster:** Did you shoe check him again?

**Bitty:** Shouldn’t you two be working?

**Ransom:** Shouldn’t YOU be working??

**Bitty:** I’m on my lunch break!

**Ransom:** We are also on our lunch break. Wanna meet outside your office? The Bon Me truck is HERE

**Bitty:** …. Give me three minutes

**Lardo:** Bro, what’s the latest outrage?

**Shitty:** THIS: https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/08/03/dunkin-without-donut-could-happen/KsrNpUnGfZCAW98VhWzaqK/story.html

Lardo clicks through to the link, and contemplates the folly of corporate America and their total lack of humanity.

**Lardo:** What the actual fuck?

**Lardo:** This is not okay

**Shitty:** RIGHT?! Fuckin inexcusable.

**Bitty:** Aren’t their donuts kind of dry? I only ever get coffee there

**Shitty:** Bitty, never speak to me again

**Lardo:** Bits that is blasphemy. How can you have lived in New England for five years and not been converted to Dunkies’?

**Shitty:** Your boyfriend plays in the fucking Dunkin’ Donuts Center! How would you like for it to just be called The Dunkin’ Center!?!!

**Bitty:** I always got Annie’s at Samwell?

**Bitty:** Ransom, Holster, help me out here. 

**Holster:** Bro even I know never to get between New Englanders and their Dunkin Donuts.

**Bitty:** But Lardo just called it Dunkies’!

**Shitty:** It’s an affectionate pet name for our favorite donuts and coffee shop!! 

**Shitty:** I take comfort in knowing that wherever I go in New England, nay wherever I go in the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, I can find a cup of coffee and a beautiful fat donut and know that all is as it should be.

**Shitty:** Changing the name is BLASPHEMY 

**Bitty:** They’re still selling doughnuts! They’re just dropping the horrendously misspelled second part of their name!

**Lardo:** Dunkin’ spells “Donuts” properly Bits. Everyone else is wrong.

The argument goes on for another few minutes, but by 12:45 Lardo has finished up her packed lunch in the breakroom of the art gallery she works for. She puts her phone away and doesn’t get a chance to check the group chat until she gets off work at five. There’s one single message, sent at 3:47, from her favorite, but hopelessly wrong, NHL player.

**Jack:** I always thought Tim Hortons was better.

 

“How can Jack betray me like this?” cries Shitty. He’s shed his suit in favor of nothing more than a pair of old boxers, and is perched over a pot of boxed macaroni and cheese on the stove. One of their ancient box fans is pointed directly at him, but he still looks uncomfortably hot. The summer has been unusually warm this year, and Lardo and Shitty’s apartment, like most in Boston, has no air conditioning.

“He’s Canadian. He may be wrong, but he’s been indoctrinated since youth to love his inferior donut chain,” Lardo replies, taking two bowls off of the drying rack and placing them on the counter by the stove. She’d eschewed her own workwear for a tank top and underwear.

“We have to show him how wrong he is,” Shitty says, dumping macaroni into each of the bowls. 

“A taste test. We’ll have the advantage, since the closest Tim Hortons is in Niagara Falls or something.”

Shitty seizes his phone from the kitchen counter and opens up the group message.

**Shitty:** Jack Zimmermann. We challenge you to a taste off.

**Shitty:** Dunkin’s donuts and munchkins versus Tim Hortons donuts and whatever the hell you Canadians call munchkins.

**Jack:** Challenge accepted. Our house. This Saturday. 

**Bitty:** How about I just make y’all doughnuts?

**Shitty:** This about HONOR, Bittle.

**Shitty:** Although I’m sure your donuts are great can we have those too?

**Holster:** Ransom and I will act as impartial judges

**Lardo:** Ransom can’t be impartial. That Son of Ontario would never turn against his native land

**Ransom:** It’s true. Timmy’s is in my blood 

**Holster:** How about me, Bitty, and the Frogs? 

**Holster:** Who are seniors now Jesus 

**Lardo:** They’re all back for preseason. We shall summon them to Providence 

**Jack:** If you two disqualified Ransom then I get to disqualify Dex. He’s from Maine. 

**Holster:** And the only thing Mainers like more than lobster is Dunkin. 

**Holster:** Which they pick up on the way to fish their lobsters out of the cold sea. 

**Shitty:** Fine. Dex is disqualified but he’s still invited. 

**Lardo:** Holster, Bitty, Chowder, and Nursey will be our judges. Nursey may have gone to Andover but you can’t shake New York out of your blood that easily. 

**Jack:** What if there’s a tie? 

**Lardo:** There won’t be a tie because Dunkin’ will win 

Everything is perfect. Lardo and Shitty have two dozen donuts and two boxes of assorted Munchkins. Half of their loot they got from the original Dunkin’ Donuts in Quincy, for authenticity, and the other half is from the Dunkin Donuts around the corner from Jack and Bitty’s Providence high rise, for convenience. Although, Lardo should say one of the Dunkies’ near their place, since there are three within a five minute walk. 

They are ready to enlighten all of their hopelessly deprived and delusional friends. They’re dressed in oversized Dunkin’ t-shirts and the pride beads with Dunkin’ Donuts charms that the DD float threw during the Boston Pride Parade. There’s no way they can’t win this. 

They knock on the door to Jack and Bitty’s apartment, and a minute later Jack opens the door. 

He’s decked out in a Tim Hortons t-shirt and shorts that look like the Canadian flag. Even before they’re over the threshold Lardo and Shitty can smell the aroma of Bitty’s homemade donuts wafting through the air. 

“Thanks for bringing these, how fresh are they?” Jack asks, moving the take the boxes out of Shitty’s hands. Shitty’s grip on the boxes tightens at the thought of sabotage. 

“As fresh as new ice at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center,” Shitty says as he and Lardo kick off their shoes. “You’re going down, Zimmermann.” 

Jack just chuckles and smirks, leading the way upstairs. The dining room table is decked in a red tablecloth with a white runner down the middle. A white porcelain cake stand holds two dozen count boxes of Tim Hortons donuts, and a slightly smaller stand holds a box of Timbits. 

“Where’s our stand?” Shitty cries indignantly. There are no fancy cake stands for their Dunkin’ offerings. 

“Timmy’s deserves its place in the sun,” Ransom says, appearing behind Shitty. He too is decked out in a ridiculous amount of Canadian and Tim Hortons paraphernalia. 

“Quit your bellyachin’-- Jack’s just trying to intimidate you,” Bitty says, emerging from the kitchen, carrying two glass cake stands. Dex follows closely behind him, carrying a tiered serving platter filled with homemade doughnuts, and wearing a Dunkin’ Donuts t shirt. Once he and Bitty arrange everything on the table, Lardo and Shitty reverently set their doughnuts down. 

“You guys really went all out for this,” Nursey says from where he is sitting away from the fray, taking a sip of his coffee. 

“This is serious,” Lardo says, eyeing Nursey like she’s his manager again. Nursey obediently wipes the smug look off his face. 

“How fresh are these?” Shitty asks, lifting the cover of the Hortons box to inspect the inferior Canadian doughnuts. 

“A courier dropped them off right before you got here!” Chowder says excitedly. “They were made this morning in Ontario!” 

“My dad just signed an endorsement deal with them,” Jack says, smirking. “So he pulled some strings to even the playing field, since we’re in the middle of New England.” 

“So this is how it’s going to work,” Bitty says, purposefully heading Shitty off before he can reply. “Holster is going to flip a coin-- whoever calls it will get to choose whether to go first or second. We’ll taste one brand, and then the other. And then we’ll eat my homemade doughnuts.” 

“Jack, heads or tails?” Holster asks, taking a coin from his pocket. 

“Heads,” Jack says. 

Holster flips the coin up in the air, and lets it land at his feet. 

“It’s heads!” Holster proclaims. “Jack, how would you like to start?” 

We’ll start with Timmy’s.” 

So the boxes of Tim Hortons are opened, and everyone eats a doughnut. And then they break into the box of Timbits. Lardo carefully studies the faces of her judges. Bitty looks a little unimpressed at everything (he’s a pie person, after all). Chowder’s face lights up when he pops a Timbit into his mouth. Holster nods and makes a show of taking notes. Nursey looks contemplative as he tastes a jelly doughnut. Ransom, although he’s not a judge, sighs happily as he eats. 

“I hold all that is good in the world in my hands,” he proclaims as he takes another handful of Timbits and shoves them all into his mouth in one go. 

Lardo can admit that Tim Hortons is good, but it’s got nothing on her Dunkies’. 

They drink water and eat a few saltines each to cleanse their pallets, and then they start on the Dunkin’ Donuts. 

Chowder seems to like Dunkin’s actual doughnuts better, but his eyes keep darting over to the box of Timbits. Holster still takes notes, Bitty obviously wants to get this over with so that he can eat his own doughnuts, and Nursey says “Chill,” as he licks jelly off his fingers. 

Shitty, meanwhile, is making orgasmic sounds as his moustache slowly gets encased in powdered sugar. Jack gives him side-eye as he nurses his chocolate covered Tim Hortons doughnut. 

When the Dunkin’ round is done, everyone makes a beeline for Bitty’s doughnuts, which are still warm and still making the apartment smell amazing. Lardo has to admit that this cinnamon-sugar one is the best doughnut she’s ever had, but Dunkin’ is Dunkin’. She can get it every day and always know that her doughnut, coffee, and/or sandwich is going to be good. Bitty makes doughnuts maybe once a year. 

“So judges,” Shitty says, clearing his throat. “What’s your verdict?” 

“Tim Hortons for me,” Bitty says. “I still think Dunkin’ Donuts is kind of dry.” 

As he says this, Jack smiles and pulls him close. 

“One for Tim Hortons, although Bits, your judgement may be clouded by true love. Nurse?” 

“Gotta go with Dunkin’. That jelly doughnut blew my mind.” 

“One for Dunkin. Chowder?” 

“Tim Hortons! Can I have the last of the Timbits, please?” 

“Of course you can,” Jack says in a tone that sounds awfully like Bitty’s. “Just make sure to share them with Ransom. 

Chowder grabs the Timbits box and he and Ransom make quick work of it. 

“So 2-1 for a second-tier doughnut. Holster?” 

“Sorry, Rans. I gotta go with Dunkin,’” Holster says. “I like their chocolate cake doughnut better.” 

“Holster!” Ransom cries, clutching his hand to his heart and sounding betrayed. 

“So… we have a tie,” Shitty says needlessly. 

There’s silence for half a minute, and then everyone starts yelling. 

_August 13th-- 7:07 PM_

**Ransom:** We have to stop this, guys. Roaches vs. attic may not have torn us apart, but this will. 

**Bitty:** It’s been WEEKS 

**Shitty:** I will not concede until Jack Zimmermann admits that Dunkin’ Donuts is the superior donut chain! 

**Shitty:** HE PLAYS IN THE DUNKIN’ DONUTS CENTER 

**Bitty:** Y’all are coming down to Providence this Sunday. I want you in my living room at three pm sharp. 

**Shitty:** Are we doing another taste test? 

**Shitty:** Because I have some thoughts about how to do a double-blind test 

**Bitty:** If anyone brings anything Dunkin’ Donuts or Tim Hortons into my house they are banned 

**Bitty:** Jack if you rhapsodize about Roll Up the Rim one more time you are sleeping on the couch 

**Jack:** :( 

“Where the hell is Bitty?” Shitty asks that weekend as he and Lardo plop onto Jack and Bitty’s couch. Ransom and Holster are already here looking like idiots as they try to play Wii tennis. 

“He left two hours ago to go get something. I don’t know what it is,” Jack says, looking sheepish. 

“Maybe he’s getting us gourmet doughnuts?” Holster hazards. 

“Maybe he’s getting us bagels so we’ll shut up about doughnuts.” 

At that moment, the door front door opens, and everyone turns their head toward the staircase as Bitty makes his way up. 

He’s wearing some sort of white paper cap on his head, and in his hands he’s carrying a bag labeled “Krispy Kreme.” 

“Alright y’all,” he says, setting the bag down on the coffee table and taking two dozen-count boxes out of it. “These are the superior fast food doughnuts. Put these on,” he orders, handing white caps to everyone in the room. “And eat. And I don’t want to hear anyone comparing them to Tim Hortons or Dunkin’ Donuts. I drove to Connecticut to get these, and by god you’re gonna eat them and be happy about it.” 

Stunned into silence, everyone dutifully puts their hats on, and then take doughnuts. 

Lardo can admit the glaze on these is divine, but it’s not Dunkin’. 

“I mean--” she begins. 

“Nope. Nope. Nothing from you, Miss Duan. If you guys don’t end this stupid feud, the only doughnuts that will be permitted in this house, or at any of our gatherings, will be Krispy Kreme. Krispy Kreme or nothing.” 

“You can’t stop me from eating Dunkin’,” Shitty says. 

At first, Bitty doesn’t say anything. He just fixes Shitty with a look that’s equal parts “Oh, bless your heart,” and “do not test me.” 

“See if I can’t, Mister B. Knight.” 

Shitty shuts up. 

“Well, now that that’s settled, are y’all free for Jack’s first preseason game next week?” 


End file.
